Can Organizations Use L&D To Help Drive Business Success Today While Building For The Future?

How organizations can build a resilient culture of learning to drive positive business outcomes and retain top talent

By Peter Heller, ServiceNow

Intoday’s challenging macroeconomic climate, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by external factors beyond our control. However, there are things that organizations can do to ensure continued business success, despite the uncertainty.

One of these is to focus on what we can control— specifically, the experience of our employees and their ability to build the skills needed to be successful in their roles and future-proof their careers. By doubling down on these areas, we can create a more resilient organization and empower our employees to reach their full potential. This effort helps retain top talent and drive positive business outcomes.

Korn Ferry predicts that by 2030, a global human talent shortage of more than 85 million people could result in about $8.4 trillion in unrealized annual revenues. Added to this is the fact that employees want to learn. More than three-quarters of employees

(76%) say they are more likely to stay with a company that offers continuous training, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

By building a robust learning culture and enabling learning with technology, organizations can foster an environment where employees feel empowered to take charge of their own career growth and development.

Change Starts at the Top Leaders, I

am looking at you.

If leaders are not taking time to learn new skills, employees will not prioritize learning and development (L&D) either. In other words, leaders need to walk the talk if they are going to talk the talk. They must demonstrate the desired behavior from the top down so employees can model it from the bottom up.

To create a sustainable learning culture, employees also need the space and time to learn. This can be difficult with shrinking teams, tight budgets, and fast-approaching deadlines. Creating symbols in your organization to help prioritize L&D — such as a “learning week” that dedicates time for employees to upskill and reskill — demonstrates that the business is serious about enabling employees to advance their skills and is shaping the conditions for learning to take place.

Simply, employees must feel that they have enough time to learn new skills and feel supported in the organization to actually take that time to develop new skills.

Technology Is an Enabler

With the foundational culture of learning in place, technology becomes an enabler and can play a critical role across the L&D spectrum. Ultimately, technology should make a process better, faster, or stronger.

1. Skills at the center

To effectively drive growth and remain competitive, organizations need to ensure that employees have the right skills to do the work today, while being given the resources to prepare for future roles. But leaders often struggle to understand the skills their employees have or need, which can hinder growth opportunities and business outcomes.

Enabling this type of skills development requires a significant amount of data and a system that turns insights into action. If organizations can better understand the skills their employees have and need, they can hire and upskill employees to drive engagement, retention, and outcomes.

Organizations can use machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to create personalized, predictive learning paths for employees. For example:

● When an employee joins a company, they need to get up to speed as quickly as possible. AI/ ML can help by analyzing data from similar roles and delivering customized training and resources to help the employee hit the ground running.

● As employees grow and develop, they may become interested in exploring new roles within the company. AI can identify the skills they currently have, the skills they need for the new role, and the training required to fill any gaps.

● Learning does not have to be a separate activity from work. Micro learnings can be integrated into the employee’s flow of work, personalized to the employee’s needs, and delivered at the right time to make the learning experience more engaging and effective.

2. A central and accessible L&D platform

Many companies have spent the last few years hiring talent globally. Even as employees head back into physical offices, they will still need to collaborate and learn in a virtual setting. This means that L&D resources need to be accessible from anywhere.

Many companies are turning to L&D platforms that house all the training programs and resources employees will need in a single location.

These platforms are also being used to provide visibility into career opportunities. By using data analytics and automation, these platforms can customize the learning experiences for each employee and provide recommendations on which courses or programs would be most beneficial for their career development.

At ServiceNow, for example, we recently launched ‘frED,’ our learning platform that brings together internal and external learning content in one place, making it available across devices and delivered in a personalized way. ‘FrED,’ named after our founder Fred Luddy, recommends relevant content based on employee preferences to help them build the skills needed for today and the future. This empowers employees to take control of their own career journeys and fosters a culture of continuous learning and growth within the organization.

3. Automation improves the manager experience Managers have some of the hardest jobs right now. They are managing their own growth and their team’s growth, and often play a big role in business growth.

If we want our employees to continuously learn and develop, we need to enable our managers too.

Putting the right systems and technologies in place helps keep managers connected and engaged so they can better support themselves and their teams. This means real-time insights that give managers a holistic view of their team’s performance, well-being and aspirations and automation to recommend actions to help enhance the employee experience. With customized information, communications, and resources delivered right when they are needed, everyone can stay on track and focus on what is important.

L&D Is a Must-have, Not a Nice-to-have

According to the 2023 LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report, 93% of organizations are concerned about employee retention. Employees who are not learning will leave, as three of the top five factors people consider when pursuing new jobs reflect their desire to stretch, grow, and develop new skills.

To stay competitive, organizations must prioritize learning and development as a must-have rather than a nice-to-have. Can organizations help drive business success today while building for the future? With the right L&D strategy in place, I think the answer is yes.